Voices in AI – Episode 74: A Conversation with Dr. Kai-Fu Lee

About this Episode

Episode 74 of Voices in AI features host Byron Reese and Dr. Kai-Fu Lee discussing the potential of AI to disrupt job markets, the comparison of AI research and implementation in the U.S. and China, as well as other facets of Dr. Lee’s book “AI Superpowers”. Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, previously president of Google China, is now the CEO of Sinovation Ventures.

Transcript Excerpt

Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI, brought to you by GigaOm. I’m Byron Reese. Today I am so excited… my guest is Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. He is, of course, an AI expert. He is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures. He is the former President of Google China. And he is the author of a fantastic new book called “AI Superpowers.” Welcome to the show, Dr. Lee.

Kai-Fu Lee: Thank you Byron.

I love to begin by saying, AI is one of those things that can mean so many things. And so, for the purpose of this conversation, what are we talking about when we talk about AI?

We’re talking about the advances in machine learning… in particular Deep Learning and related technologies as it applies to artificial narrow intelligence, with a lot of opportunities for implementation, application and value extraction. We’re not talking about artificial general intelligence, which I think is still a long way out.

So, confining ourselves to narrow intelligence, if someone were to ask you worldwide, not even getting into all the political issues, what is the state of the art right now? How would you describe where we are as a planet with narrow artificial intelligence?

I think we’re at the point of readiness for application. I think the greatest opportunity is application of what’s already known. If we look around us, we see very few of the companies, enterprises and industries using AI when they all really should be. Internet companies use AI a lot, but it’s really just beginning to enter financial, manufacturing, retail, hospitals, healthcare, schools, education and so on. It should impact everything, and it has not.

So, I think what’s been invented and how it gets applied/implemented/monetized… value creation, that is a very clear 100% certain opportunity we should embrace. Now, there can be more innovations, inventions, breakthroughs… but even without those I think we’ve got so much on our hands that’s not yet been fully valued and implemented into industry.